Watch Drake’s graduation speech

Drake gave a graduation speech. He managed to avoid saying “YOLO,” and he wasn’t wearing Degrassi blue and yellow – but in a YouTube video recently captured at Toronto’s Jarvis Collegiate Institute, the 27-year-old hip-hop superstar — and new high-school graduate – told the class of 2012 what getting a diploma meant to him.

Watch the video, which was uploaded late last week, here. But first, an excerpt from Drake’s address:

“It’s not necessarily about the books that you’ll read or the science or math equations that you’ll do, because you may end up taking a path in life where a lot of the things that you’ll learn you can’t necessarily fully apply,” Drake told the students gathered at Jarvis C.I.

“What this is about today, for all of you, is about the art of following through.”

He continued: “I reached a point in my life where I realized that there aren’t material things that can give me the excitement that I’m looking for. There’s a void in my life that I need to fill and I needed to sit and think long and hard [about] what that was. And it was the fact that I had left a gaping hole in my story of following through.”

(A little back-story: upon landing the role of “Wheelchair” Jimmy Brooks on Degrassi: The Next Generation, Drake dropped out of high school. He was 15.)

“Sometimes it’s about going there, not getting there. Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination,” Drake told the crowd. “And sometimes when you get there, you’ll look back and you’ll realize that you wish you could go there again because all of the experiences you went through are the reason that you are who you are today.”

The Juno winner closed his speech by thanking his mom. “This piece of paper I’d like to dedicate to my mother,” he said, hoisting his diploma. (Cue the gooey coos — and cheers — of the audience.) “She’s a retired teacher and always wanted me to graduate,” Drake said. “I think I’ll sleep a little better tonight knowing that I found a way to follow through.”

Earlier this month, Drake Tweeted that he’d finally completed his high-school education. “97% percent on my final exam. 88% in the course. One of the greatest feelings in my entire life. As of tonight I have graduated high school,” he wrote October 17.